Latest / Padre Alberto (Father Albert) / NOTHING IS EVER "LOST" FOR GOD

Transcript

NOTHING IS EVER "LOST" FOR GOD · Padre Alberto (Father Albert)

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  Have you ever gotten frustrated when you lose something?
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  Anyone? Have you lost your cell phone,
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  Your keys? Your purse?
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  Ladies, have you lost a piece of jewelry and you're frustrated
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  and you're wondering, oh boy. Or my case, sometimes I lose a
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  book that I had just somewhere in my bookshelf, I knew exactly
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  where it was and I forgot. I lent it to someone and I never
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  saw it again. Has that happened to you?
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  Well, yesterday I had an interesting experience.
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  Actually, no Friday, part of Friday is my day off and I try
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  to do some things around the house.
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  And I was back and forth to Home Depot taking care of some
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  things, and I lost my wallet for about 45 minutes.
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  I had no way of locating my wallet.
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  Now, thank God today, you know, we got that tap pay, you know,
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  or you pay with your phone. And I was able to pay.
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  But it was nevertheless frustrating because I didn't
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  want to lose my wallet because my someone in Japan decided to
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  go shopping with my debit card and I had to cancel my debit
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  card. And you know how long it takes
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  for the bank to send it back out to you.
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  And I thought, oh, no, not again.
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  But guess what? About 45 minutes later, in the
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  most unexpected place, you know, where your car seat meets that
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  little center console, I stuck my hand in there.
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  And guess what? There it was, my wallet.
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  But you know, I'm sharing this with you because Luke 15, where
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  we are today, is really my favorite part of the gospel.
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  Now, I love all of it. But Luke 15, which is right in
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  the middle, right at the very heart of the Gospel, is so
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  awesome because we got 3 parables about things that
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  seemed lost but were found Yesterday.
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  We had a beautiful Corcio gathering here in this church.
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  People from all over the diocese came and I was telling them,
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  look at your Bible. And everybody thought, well,
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  what's he doing with the Bible? If you look at it carefully, and
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  I'm not kidding, you see this part, 3/4 of it, right?
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  You see it, You see the difference?
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  3/4 of it over here, almost 40 books, sometimes 40 plus
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  depending on what Bible you use. 3/4 of it is the Old Testament,
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  the Hebrew Scriptures. It's just this little part here
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  that's the New Testament, right? And what was going on here
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  thousands of years since the creation of the world.
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  Think about it. The prophets, all kinds of
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  special people. We've got the Torah, the Law,
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  the prophets, the wisdom books, the beautiful Psalms.
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  They're all here. And what are they all about?
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  God reaching out to his people from the beginning of creation.
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  God reaching out to us, a humanity that at times seemed
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  very lost. I needed to find its way to God.
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  Here it is. Look at all that.
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  Thousands of years and then something changes, right?
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  Because God so loved the world, he didn't give up on his people
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  who were lost. He sent his only Son to be our
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  Saviour. And of course, here we have the
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  other 27 books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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  Everyone, by the way, has 27 books in their New Testament.
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  Don't let them tell you, oh, this Bible's different.
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  Every Bible has 27 books in the New Testament, and it's got
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  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Gospels.
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  Then you've got all these beautiful Acts of the Apostles,
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  all the beautiful letters. And then you've got the book of
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  the Apocalypse for Revelation, which lots of movies are made
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  about that one. But you know what I'm saying,
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  right? Look at this, this struggle.
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  Humanity seemed lost, but God did not give up.
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  And I'm here to give you the good news today.
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  Nothing is ever lost for God. Listen to me, nothing is lost
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  for God. I love the drama in today's
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  parables, right? The first one seems like a
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  mathematical mistake, an illogical thing.
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  Who would lead 99 sheep that are going the right way for the one
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  that got lost? None of us here, right?
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  No, you just say, well. It's gone.
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  What am I going to do? I lost it.
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  But it tells us and Jesus tells us it wasn't good enough.
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  The shepherd went out and looked for the lost sheep, and guess
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  what? Rejoiced when he found the lost
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  sheet, couldn't contain the joy. The second example, of course,
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  is very common to us. Something falls by the bedside
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  or you're in your couch, you know, watching TV, something
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  falls in there, or my wallet that got lost in there,
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  whatever. But it's a very valuable thing
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  it tells us. And the lady swept and swept and
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  swept and cleaned the house. And then when she found it, what
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  she do rejoice. See, the lesson is for God,
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  nothing is ever lost. And this is important for us to
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  remember because the way we live our lives, sometimes we forget
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  how patient, how loving, how caring God has been to us.
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  We've all gotten lost, we've all fallen, we've all sinned, we've
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  all been weak. We all haven't acted up to the
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  standard that God holds up for us, right?
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  But the truth is, for God, everything in our humanity and
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  in our world is redeemable, savable, restorable.
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  And so He sends his Son into our world because He knows that in
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  our flesh we desire to connect and we need to connect.
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  And so God sends his Son and connects with his humanity
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  directly. He sends us his Son, our Savior,
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  Jesus Christ, and we are saved by the blood of his cross
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  because the fact is, Jesus gave it all.
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  Nothing is lost for God. So, my friends, today I want us
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  to think about what is beyond God's reach.
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  Nothing is beyond God's reach. What is?
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  What is too, too, too, too terrible that cannot be restored
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  or saved? Well, nothing really, because
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  God's love is infinite, His patience with us and our
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  humanity is infinite. His mercy is infinite and God is
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  always with us, no matter what. Now, this week in our nation,
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  there's been great mourning, great controversy.
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  A young man whose lives, whose life is just beginning, married
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  with two little children, his life was taken away, and it was
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  taken away not at war. It wasn't in some big, big fancy
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  city where there's lots of violence.
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  It happened in Utah. God forgive me.
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  They're watching, right? What what?
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  What happens in Utah? I mean, Utah's not a very
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  violent place, is it? You never hear anything crazy
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  about Utah. You hear stuff about Miami, Fort
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  Lauderdale, New York, LA. But when do you hear something
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  crazy going on in Utah? The most exciting thing in Utah
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  are the Mormons, Salt Lake City. But in that Utah University,
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  that seemed like a quiet place, such a horrible, violent act.
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  And then how does our humanity respond?
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  Oh, we start going with our politics, you know, whether
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  you're here or there. We start going with our
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  ideology, whether this young man provoked it or listened to me,
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  my friends, nobody, no human being has a right to end someone
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  else's life, no matter what. You do not have that privilege.
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  Life is sacred. It's a gift from God.
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  You do not have the privilege of taking someone else's life, no
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  matter how much you disagree with them, don't like them,
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  don't care for their positions. Nobody has the right to end
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  someone else's life. And so today, as I'm reading
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  God's word, what I'm thinking is, if God never gives up on us,
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  if God is always patient with us, if God is always able to
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  tolerate our wayward ways, why do we have such a hard time
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  tolerating each other? Why do we have such a hard time
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  being patient with each other? Why do we have such a hard time
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  understanding that not everyone sees things the way we see them
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  and that it's OK to have different perspectives in our
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  world? Are we that small that we can't
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  just realize that we're going to have different views on almost
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  everything? It's OK.
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  Look, in our own church, in our own church, there's all kinds of
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  strife. You go throughout the Anglican
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  community, 90 million Christians throughout the world.
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  There's all kinds of different opinions about almost
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  everything. We don't all have to agree on
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  the same things, but we have to love each other.
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  We have to respect each other. We have to be patient with each
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  other because you know what? Throughout life, God has a way
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  of transforming us, of changing us.
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  We tend to give up on each other too easily.
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  How many people give up on their marriage because their spouse is
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  going through some crisis or some problem?
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  You know what? There's always a way, and we
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  need to learn to be more patient with each other.
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  Sometimes we think that everything's going to be done
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  now because I want it now, because I need it now.
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  I need everyone to think this way now.
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  No, guess what? That doesn't happen that way.
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  No way. Sometimes it takes generations
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  for things to come to light, but in our world we have a tendency
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  today to just give up, close the door, and maybe God's Word is
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  teaching us something else. If we understand that we're
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  sinful, that we're weak, that there's a sense of fallen nature
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  in us, the good news is for God, none of us are lost forever.
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  For God, everything will be found.
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  So guess what, You feel a bit lost sometimes.
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  You feel like little lost sheep that got lost.
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  Guess what we all do. We all feel lost sometimes.
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  You may think this storm you're going through right now and I
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  don't know what it is. You know your storm.
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  Identify, please, in your mind at this moment, your storm, that
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  storm, that one you, you think that that storm will never end.
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  I'm here to tell you, it always does.
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  Listen to me. That storm, the other one you're
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  thinking about right now. Yep, it seems bigger than you.
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  I'm here to tell you God's bigger than that.
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  Bigger than that storm. Or maybe you think it's too late
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  for you or too late for a loved 1 struggling with something.
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  It's an addiction, it's a problem, it's a it's something
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  they've told you. No, no, no, there's no way, no
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  way, no way. Guess what?
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  I'm here to tell you nothing. Nothing is lost for God.
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  God is always looking out for us, reaching out to us.
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  So, my friends, we're called to rejoice today, to rejoice in the
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  promise of God, in the promise of God's word, that there will
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  be a big party in heaven. Listen to me carefully.
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  A big celebration, a big party in heaven, because for God
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  nothing is lost and we're all found.
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  And at this stage of life, I've come to terms with the fact that
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  most of the things that I see wrong with the world are not
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  things that I can fix and change, but I know that God is
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  able to do it all. So my job as a person of faith,
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  my job as a human being walking on this earth at this time is to
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  let God be God. Because when I let God be God
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  and I put my trust in God, I know nothing will be lost
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  forever. In the name of God the Father,
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  Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.